Monday, October 03, 2016

No True Scotsman, redux

Over at Jihad Watch comments, many of the regulars are puzzling over or dismayed by why a non-Leftist Conservative, John Podhoretz, would call Robert Spencer "slime" and a "piece of shit" because Spencer dared to suspect a(n ex-)Muslim Reformer (i.e., another in a long line of "Better Cops"), Sohrab Ahmari.

One longtime regular (and unofficial member of the Rabbit Pack there), "Wellington", wrote:

What makes this all the more troubling is that he is not a leftist, in
fact far from it. His conservative credentials have been know by all
for a long time now (e.g., he was a speechwriter for President Reagan).

After years of encountering non-Leftists who are clueless about the problem of Islam, and who reflexively defend Muslims from "bigotry", you'd think the Jihad Watch regulars would be supremely jaded and unsurprised by Podhoretz. And then, you'd think they would have taken the time and trouble to think about why it is that Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism runs so broadly and deeply throughout the mainstream West, to include the vast majority of Conservatives, Centrists, and the Comfortably Apolitical. With one eye closed, and the other eye fixed on the Left, they tend to see only the True Scotsman.

If it wouldn't be too annoying and painful for them, they could expend a little time to read some of my essays I've written over the years pondering this phenomenon: